If Dolphin's are so smart why don't they have tools, live in houses and drive SUV's to work?
Maybe they they have it to easy in the sea - I mean it's adversity which makes us take up technology. It's that whole 42 latitude thing the Nazi's came up with, no one in paradise had to make a better pot bellied stove, right?
Given enough time and if we flood the Earth because of Global Warming, will the Dolphins ever become the dominate species of the Earth?
Makes for good Sci-Fi.
Back to the real thing............................................
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050606/dolphin.html
Study: Dolphins Use Sponge as Tool
By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
Quote:
June 6, 2005— The use of sponges as tools among some dolphins could be the first documented case of a material culture in a marine mammal species.
The behavior, called sponging, involves a dolphin affixing a marine sponge over its snout to protect itself while it pokes and prods for fish on the sea floor. Researchers believe the use of this sponge tool is a fishing technique that mother dolphins teach to their children. .................................................
.................Mitochondrial DNA, for example, would pass down to both sons and daughters, but females mostly engage in sponging. The single male sponger, however, suggested that a female-only chromosome, even a recessive one, is not at work. Krützen believes mothers teaching their offspring is the only other possible explanation for the sponge glove usage.
Most male dolphins simply may not have a lot of time for sponging.
"If they are sexually mature, they spend a significant amount of time chasing females, in particular in breeding season," Krützen told Discovery News.
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If they are sexually mature, they (males) spend a significant amount of time chasing females, in particular in breeding season
Boys will be boys. 
More of the same:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0607_050607_dolphin_tools.html
Dolphin Moms Teach Daughters to Use Tools
James Owen
for National Geographic News
June 7, 2005
Quote:
Researchers now report this odd hunting technique originated in a single female and is passed from mother to daughter.
Basing their findings on genetic analysis, the team suggests that this so-called sponging behavior represents the first known example of tool-related culture in cetaceans. Cetaceans are a group of mostly marine animals, including whales and dolphins...........................
The haunting songs of humpback whale males have been compared to our pop charts, with the whales changing their tunes in unison across entire oceans.
Michael Krützen referred to a "cultural revolution" in Australian humpback whales, "where one particularly popular song was replaced by a new one at sweeping speed."
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A whale top ten song list? 